What has adoption become

I know what I am about to say will make some people angry, but I have reached a point in my life and career in which I cannot be responsible for how other people react to my truth. Nor can I sit on the sidelines and not speak up. This has been a difficult life lesson for me, a people pleaser, but here it is. I have been an adoption social worker for over 20 years, I am a white woman with a Black partner and together we have parented four children of color into young adulthood, three of whom were adopted. I hold certificates in “Therapy with Adoptive and Foster Families” and “Attachment-Trauma focused Therapy” and have been a licensed clinical social worker in Washington State for almost 30 years, so I know of what I speak, and I believe the adoption industry needs a significant overhaul. In this context I am speaking primarily about the private domestic adoption industry, and more specifically, I am speaking about trans-racial adoption.

Once upon a time adoption was intended as a way to provide homes to children who found themselves without parents or family to care for them or who were removed from their families. From the beginning adoption has been fraught with issues from placing children for adoption without a parental consent to removing children because of poverty to removing indigenous children and placing them in white homes in an attempt at genocide, adoption has never been a perfect answer to a very complex situation. However, as adoption has grown into a multi-million-dollar business the pressure to “find” more children for the families waiting to adopt has only increased the magnitude of problems with adoption. One of the most damaging and least talked about problems is the pressure put on white families to “broaden” their adoption criteria. And by “broaden” most adoption agencies mean racially. White Adoptive families are told they can adopt faster and less expensively if they are open to adopting a child of color. This is said with little to know thought about what is best for the child.

One of the things I know for certain is, NOT ALL ADOPTIVE PARENTS SHOULD ADOPT TRANS-RACIALLY. For those of you who do not know, trans-racial adoption is an adoption in which a family adopts a child of a race different from their own. Most cases of trans-racial adoption, involve a white family adopting a child of another race.

I could get into the paternalistic and genocidal history of the adoption of children of color by white families but that is for another time. Rather, I want to address this issue that has become ever more pressing over the last few years: Adoption agencies, attorneys, facilitators, etc., pressuring adoptive families and homestudy (A homestudy is a required investigative report completed by a licensed individual to determine whether an applicant(s) is qualified to be an adoptive parent) providers such as myself to either change their adoption preferences, in the case of adoptive families, or to change homestudy recommendations, in the case of homestudy providers.

I have been completing homestudies for over 20 years and have written hundreds of homestudies for as many different kinds of families as you can imagine. Most families are great and easy to approve for adoption, some take longer and require more conversation, and some I simply cannot approve such as the couple who wanted to adopt “some kids” from the Philippines but the husband’s FBI clearance came back a mile long including several accusations and arrests for statutory rape, that was a non-starter.

As a homestudy provider, I am entrusted with making sure a home is safe and the placement is in the “best interest” of the child, I take my job very seriously. My job is not to make things work for the adults. The homestudy process consists of a lot of paperwork and even more conversation. One of the lines of conversation I take most seriously is trans-racial adoption and ensuring a family is prepared to, and understands, what it means to adopt trans-racially. Simply because a family wants to adopt trans-racially does not mean they are prepared or that I will approve them to do so

Adopting a child of a race different than your own takes more than, “we will love any child that is placed in our home”. I do not doubt most families could love any child placed in their home, but trans-racial adoption is about so much more than love, it is about commitment, being okay with feeling uncomfortable, putting the needs of your child above your own, being okay with talking about race and not knowing the answers but being willing to find people who can help you discover and more importantly understand the answers, and being willing to truly listen to people of color. It means a lifetime of heavy lifting on the part of Adoptive parents, it should not mean a lifetime of heavy lifting on the part of the child but often, it is just that.

Unfortunately, adoption is usually focused on the “best interest” of the adults and not the children. It is focused on the best interests of adoption agencies, attorneys, and facilitators (many of whom are making a lot of money), and the adoptive parents. It is focused on how quickly a couple can adopt and how much it will cost. Rarely is adoption focused on what is in the best interest of the child and/or their birth or first family. This is something I have struggled with for most of my career.

As the cost and wait times to adopt have climbed so has the pressure to approve adoptive families to adopt trans-racially. Over the last couple of years, I have had several agencies attempt to “strong arm” me into changing my homestudy recommendations to approve families to adopt trans-racially when I was firm in my professional assessment they were not prepared to parent a child of a race different than their own.

I have had countless discussions with families about my reasons for not approving them to adopt trans-racially, along with countless discussions about what it means to adopt trans-racially, after which many families decide on their own, it is not in the best interest of the child for them to adopt trans-racially. Despite these discussions, I continue to be pressured to change my homestudy recommendations. I have been told by adoption agencies, attorneys, and facilitators that a family may not be able to adoption if they are not approved to adopt trans-racially (again, placement is not my charge) and therefore I must change my recommendations. I have never had an agency, attorney, or facilitator tell me they are concerned about a child’s best interest in a trans-racial adoption.

I have interviewed families who were racist plain and simple and families who, while not explicitly racist, did not have a clue about what is entailed in raising a child of another race. Families who were unwilling to make any changes in their lives to ensure the child they adopted would have people who look like them be a part of their lives. Of course, these are difficult decisions for me to make and are made with my years of training and experience.

I am the first to admit, I have not always thought as deeply about trans-racial adoption, and before becoming the parent of children of color, I belonged to the White progressive camp of “why can’t we all just get along and I can love any child”. It’s true, I think I can fall in love with just about any child but have come to realize, love does not cure all and holding onto the viewpoint that it does is about me, not the child.

I have been through many transitions in my life and can now say, there is a whole lot I don’t know, a whole lot I still have to learn, and a whole lot I have learned in the 54 years I have been on this earth. The first time I walked into a Black men’s barber shop, I was the only white person, and the only woman in the shop but I knew my sons deserved to have their hair cut in a Black barber shop by a black barber. They deserved to have the entire cultural experience of being in a Black barbershop surrounded by the warm embrace of men and boys who looked like them. When I walked into the shop, I felt my skin bristle, as I waited for someone to ask me about my relationship to my sons. I learned from that experience and so many more like it, that this type of discomfort happens to me once in a blue moon, it is infrequent that I am the only one of anything but those I love experience being the “only” every single day of their lives. They are often the only person of color in the classroom, the only person of color in the restaurant, the only person of color in the office, etc. Learning to live with my discomfort was a hard but necessary lesson to learn; to learn to be uncomfortable, and still do what is best for my children. It has also given me insight into what they experience every day, although I recognize even in those moments of discomfort, I am afforded the privilege of walking into a Brown or Black space knowing I will be ok, Black and Brown people are often not afforded the same privilege in white spaces.

I am fortunate to have a diverse friend/family community, but we live in a country that is largely segregated and just as we as parents are obliged to enrich our children’s lives through sports, music, etc., we are obliged to enrich our children’s lives through diversity. This is especially true for parents who are parenting children of a race different from theirs. As Adoptive parents we cannot expect our children to live their lives entirely in a community that looks like us, their parents, rather we are obligated to get out of our comfort zone and live in communities that look like our children. Clearly, adopting trans-racially requires a commitment on the part of the adoptive parents to provide their children with culturally appropriate mentors, peers, and experiences — this at a bare minimum and what is required by the homestudy.

Yet, I would argue that much more should be required. Adoptive parents should be required to show they already have a diverse family/friend community and if not, how that will change before a child is placed in their home? Adoptive parents should be required to take many hours of training on trans-racial adoption, including listening to the experiences of trans-racial adoptees (enough listening to the stories of white adoptive parents). Adoptive parents should be required to visit neighborhood schools to see for themselves if there are students and administrators of color and if not, be willing to move. Adoptive parents should be required to talk with friends and family about their plans to adopt trans-racially and encourage them to take part in the learning and make it clear, racism in any form will not be tolerated. Adoptive parents should be required to get out into the community and be uncomfortable before a child is placed in their home. Adoption agencies, facilitators, and attorneys should make these requirements part of the pre-adoption process for potential adoptive parents and not something that comes as an afterthought or that can be done once the child is placed in the home, by then it is too late.

Trans-racial adoption must be discussed in terms of what is truly in the best interest of the child for the rest of their lives. I challenge adoption agencies, attorneys, social workers, and adoptive parents to think deeply about and take action on what is in the best interest of the child for the rest of their lives as they are the ones who will bear the consequences of our decisions…